Bright v. Ray

Appeal
from the Circuit Court of St. Louis County Honorable Kristine
A. Kerr

ROY L
RICHTER, Judge

James
E. Bright ("Petitioner") appeals from a judgment of
the Circuit Court of St. Louis County denying his petition
for expungement of records under Section 577.054, RSMo. 2000,
after he pled guilty to an amended charge of careless and
imprudent driving under Section 320.060 of the Town and
Country City Code. The circuit court granted motions to
dismiss Petitioner's petition, which were filed by the
Missouri State Highway Patrol and the City of Town and
Country (collectively, "Respondents"). We affirm.

I.
Background

On
September 5, 2002, the Town and Country Police Department
arrested Petitioner and charged him with driving while
intoxicated ("DWI"), pursuant to Section 345.020 of
the Town and Country City Code, which provided that "[a]
person commits the offense of 'driving while
intoxicated' if he/she operates a motor vehicle while in
an intoxicated and/or drugged condition."

On
December 20, 2002, as part of a negotiated plea bargain with
the Town and Country prosecuting attorney, Petitioner pled
guilty to an amended charge of "careless and imprudent
driving" under Section 320.060 of the Town and Country
City Code. Petitioner also received a suspended imposition of
sentence, conditioned on a one-day probation and the
successful completion of the Substance Abuse Traffic
Offenders' Program ("SATOP").

On
April 9, 2003, the Missouri Department of Revenue suspended
Petitioner's driver's license for 90 days, which was
an independent administrative suspension based upon a finding
of probable cause to believe that Petitioner was driving a
motor vehicle while his alcohol concentration was at or above
the limit provided in Section 302.505.

On
October 29, 2013, Petitioner filed a petition for expungement
in the Town and Country Municipal Court, which was denied
without a hearing based on the fact that under Section
577.054, Petitioner was ineligible to have the records
expunged because careless and imprudent driving is not an
"alcohol-related offense." Petitioner then sought a
trial de novo of the municipal judge's decision in the
circuit court of St. Louis County, which was dismissed
pursuant to Section 479.200, giving only defendants a right
to a trial de novo. Petitioner appealed and this Court
affirmed. Bright v. Town and Country Police Dept.,
449 S.W.3d 401 (Mo. App. E.D. 2014). Petitioner's motions
for rehearing and application for transfer to the Supreme
Court were subsequently denied.

Petitioner
then filed an application for prohibition and/or mandamus in
the circuit court, requesting that the municipal judge be
prohibited from ruling that careless and imprudent driving is
not an alcohol-related driving offense and be mandated to
hold an evidentiary hearing. The circuit court directed the
municipal court to rehear the case. After a hearing on the
petition for expungement, the court reached the same
conclusion as before: careless and imprudent driving is not
an alcohol-related driving offense. Petitioner appealed to
this court, which found that the municipal court lacked
jurisdiction over the expungement petition and reversed and
remanded for dismissal. Bright v. Mollenkamp, 482
S.W.3d 467 (Mo. App. E.D. 2016). Petitioner then refiled his
petition in the St. Louis County Circuit Court, which granted
Respondents' motions to dismiss Petitioner's
petition, finding that Petitioner's conviction for
careless and imprudent driving is not an
"alcohol-related driving offense." This appeal
follows.

Petitioner
has not been convicted of any "alcohol-related driving
offenses" after his guilty plea for careless and
imprudent driving in the Town and Country Municipal Court in
2002, and Petitioner's driver's license operator
status is currently valid. At no time has Petitioner had a
commercial driver's license in this or any other state.

II.
Discussion

Petitioner
raises one point on appeal, which has multiple parts. He
argues the circuit court erred in granting Respondents'
motions to dismiss, thereby denying Petitioner's petition
for expungement under Section 577.054, because he met all the
statutory requirements, including pleading guilty to an
"alcohol-related driving offense." He argues the
following reasons: (A) Petitioner's guilty plea to
careless and imprudent driving in this case is a plea to a
driving offense which is clearly "connected by reason of
an established or discovered relation" to alcohol; (B)
the prospective repeal of Section 577.054 and replacement of
the same with Section 610.130 further supports the
construction and interpretation of "alcohol-related
driving offense" urged by Petitioner; (C) the definition
of "alcohol-related driving offense" as contained
in Section 302.545 of the Town and Country City Code provides
some guidance to its meaning in Section 577.054; and (D)
restrictively interpreting the term "alcohol-related
driving offense" to exclude a plea-bargained traffic
offense amended from the DWI with which Petitioner was
initially charged would constitute a constitutional violation
of Petitioner's equal protection and due process rights
under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States
Constitution and Article I, Sections 2 and 10 of the Missouri
Constitution.

A.
Standard of Review

This
case was submitted to the trial court upon a stipulation of
facts and procedural history, and a correction to that
stipulation. The only question on appeal for this Court is a
question of law: whether Petitioner's guilty plea to
careless and imprudent driving constituted a guilty plea to
an "alcohol-related driving offense" as it is used
in Section 577.054. "When, as here, a court-tried case
is submitted on stipulated facts, however, then the only
question before the Court is 'whether the trial court
drew the proper legal conclusions from the facts
stipulated.' The Court reviews ...

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